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Well hello my fine, Fett loving friends! Yep, it’s been a while. Waiting for the aluminium ears, and partaking in that little thing called ‘real life’, has halted me a little on this project, but glad to say I’m back for the first real update for 2013, and I’m starting off with a good one : the superb metal ears, weathered and finished in all their ROTJ glory!

Now, first thing I will say is that the wait was very worth it. A beautiful job by Gav to produce these ears, and in my mind, completely suited to the PP2 and ROTJ versions the best, with all the metal showing and having them look as authentic as possible. They were also a pleasure to paint and weather, because, as they act like the real thing, `a variety of techniques work so well for them - from airbrushing, to scratching, sanding, steel wool-ing and applying pastel weathering. So they provided a really neat challenge to get them accurate.

Rangefinder Ear
I love this ear. Love it on ESB, and really love it on ROTJ. Just looks so dynamic. First thing to do was to clean up the ears, and on this ear, insert the Honeywell micro chip. A very light bit of dremel action was all that was needed. The weathering was achieved by carefully dissecting the patterns, complete with liquid masking certain areas to remain silver metal underneath. Lots of colours were used, including gold and gunmetal highlights, to bring out the very faint browny shade within. There are also some small flashes of caboose throughout. Once dried, scratches with a fine compass point, angled sanding with 400 grit sandpaper, and some steel wool ensued. Once I was pretty happy, some pastel weathering went on to bring out a few extra shades, and some finer detailed scratches were added throughout.

Other Ear
This ear used many of the same methods as the rangefinder ear, but was a little more subtle in the application, and there wasn’t much sandpaper used, as it is more even throughout. The signature section on the left hand side was an important section for me to get right; and I was pleased with the results. This section also has some caboose highlights – namely in the middle of the bottom rectangle, and also a little in the actual recess in the middle towards the top, and a small bit of overspray on the bottom right hand corner. I was able to get those details down, so once again, very happy

So, onto our pics... The first two simply show the ears weathered and attached to the helmet from either side. I really like the overall look of these ears, and they really bring the whole helmet together. Our comparison pics are next, and I’m very satisfied that I was able to get these accurate – these ears after all, would’ve been very random, and taken some extra damage and rubbing back over the years, so that will always be hard to replicate 100%, but I’m happy with the results. The colours are a bit lighter in person, but with the metal gleaming off the light, they can be difficult to capture right while trying to get in all the detail.

The montage pic is next, and highlights some fine detail areas - the micro switch peeking out in 1.; Some of the previously mentioned Caboose highlights in 2; and the bondo fix present on the real helmet in 3., where I actually used some real bondo to add some texture. The last pic is a pretty basic one of the earcap with the Microswitch screwed in.

So there you are gang – I hope you enjoy the pics, and with the rangefinder, interior final weathering and final pics only to go, this one is almost there! Colours and techniques have been added to the first post, any feedback, suggestions or questions, most welcome! Peace

Haha, thank you lads for the awesome comments. Eric - I now know exactly where to send this helmet for a quick and efficient disposal. Thanks kindly for offering up your stealth-like services

Raf - as always, far too kind. As for LFL, some old bearded guy named 'George-something' only lets me take out the helmet on weekends..

In all seriousness, thanks lads. Still some more little fine detail work to add around the ears, such as the clear orange substance drips, and sorting out the RF topper and stalk will be the next area to tackle. This helmet has been a beast, but light at the end of the tunnel! Thanks again chaps!

I am absolutely blown away by what you've achieved here. I've seen some good "interpretations" of the RoTJ helmet but I'm not exaggerating when I say this honestly and truly looks like something that could've been stolen from the LFL archives! Just stunning!

I am absolutely blown away by what you've achieved here. I've seen some good "interpretations" of the RoTJ helmet but I'm not exaggerating when I say this honestly and truly looks like something that could've been stolen from the LFL archives! Just stunning!

Wow Wolf, they are super kind comments - thanks so much for the big props my friend, much appreciated!

The most amazing thing for me personally is that this thread (which has been such a great paint up thread) has made me fall in love with the ROTJ helmet when I was a hardcore ESB guy. You have achieved a new level of Awesome with this one.

Shabad - firstly, thank you kindly for your big props. I know exactly what you mean with the helmets - ESB always looked immediately more easy on the eyes for me, hence why I did that first. But during the process of painting this ROTJ lid, it started giving me a much bigger appreciation for it, and while I love the look of both helmets, I definately enjoyed the process of painting the ROTJ more, and it provided some pretty technical challenges..

As for you Dom - get cracking on those ears my good man! They are a blast to weather up and I have no doubt you will do a superb job!

Amazing work! The subtle colour changes are most impressive. HOWEVER.
That left hand ear. I did a commission a few years ago for a ROTJ with aluminium ears. I studied the reference pictures and I think the ROTJ left ear is from the Super Trooper helmet. To me it looks like it has been painted silver over the original white paint, weathered and then sanded back to reveal the aluminium finish on corners and edges...

Amazing work! The subtle colour changes are most impressive. HOWEVER.
That left hand ear. I did a commission a few years ago for a ROTJ with aluminium ears. I studied the reference pictures and I think the ROTJ left ear is from the Super Trooper helmet. To me it looks like it has been painted silver over the original white paint, weathered and then sanded back to reveal the aluminium finish on corners and edges...

I completely agree G. I'm sure by now you would understand that the white shade that appears in this area hadn't gone unnoticed by my pedantic eye, but your assessment of them likely originally being super trooper ears seems bang on the money, and has me completely sold.

My thoughts when doing them, was to get it right using the silver, then if this exact topic ever came up, I could weather them whiter with some misting, washes, pastels or a combo, as its a fairly subtle difference. So that will all come under the banner of 'fine detail tuning' before I post final shots.

Thanks so much for the excellent feedback and comments. Having crew like you in my corner is a huge bonus. Plus, I did say numerous times that I have ageing eyes, so a spare quality set is invaluable! Thanks again bud!

Amazing work! The subtle colour changes are most impressive. HOWEVER.
That left hand ear. I did a commission a few years ago for a ROTJ with aluminium ears. I studied the reference pictures and I think the ROTJ left ear is from the Super Trooper helmet. To me it looks like it has been painted silver over the original white paint, weathered and then sanded back to reveal the aluminium finish on corners and edges...

Just to clarify this for everyone: what TF says by Supertrooper left ear is part of a helmet that was already in transition from Supertrooper to Boba Fett; I say this because the one and only fully functional Supertrooper suit (the one with the undented helmet) was fully converted to Pre-Pro #1.

This... :

... to this:

I did some research a while ago (1-2 years) and this helmet:

looks the best candidate for the ROTJ helmet (although the ESB helmet is close too to this one).

Morning Fett-Pimps and Pimpettes! I’ve been steadily working away at this lid, and in the last week, been able to nail down some fine details like the sides of the ears, some drips and stain marks and a few other minor odds and bobs. I have also weathered up the RF topper and am in the process of weathering the stalk, so all those knick-knacks should have photos ready in the next week or so...

This update is an addition of the ears update. My vey excellent ‘spare set of eyes’ – Garrett (Terminal Fettler), pointed out that I missed an underlying colour on the non–rangefinder ear. Of course, the great man was spot on the money, so I went about correcting it . I was originally just going to use some washes to bring up the shade, but didn’t like the test results, so simply stripped part of the ear and started again – this time placing a nice light basecoat of super light grey (Humbrol 147 – this has also been updated in the first posts colour list).

Once that coat was down and dry, I re-stenciled my areas to remain this light grey/white shade, and then masked to reapply the darker mists of grey, gunmetal etc to match the rest of the ear and the reference pics. Once done, I started on the fine detail work, and bazinga – a new ear was concocted! I was very happy with this, as I really took extra time and care to get the patterns more correct, and I think it is now far closer to the real ear in colour, damage patterns and fine detail. A big shout out to Garrett for his Spidey sense and keen detection skills, and super stoked I could get to what I feel, is a better result than before . Some light pastel weathering will be applied to dirty the light grey up a tad down the track, but it is actually not quite as white as it appears in the early photos, and some fine detail is a tad washed out in the pics - due in part to some storms going on with shifting light when I was taking the photos and some light refracting off. Overall though, this lot of pics should give a general story. Peace my friends, thanks for looking!

I'm a big ROTJ helmet fan, and own a couple different ROTJ helmets, painted by different TDH members (all free-hand, before there even WERE stencils for ROTJ) and while both look really good in person, the fact you did stencil it out and then do such fine minute detail work around it makes this helmet insanely incredible looking. Magic of Myth was my go-to reference point for painting. I did all my armor painting myself, except the helmets...which I had bought used from other TDHers. Your helmet is phenomenal looking.

Howdy Fett-Superstars! Another small addittion to this thread, which sees 99% of he main exterior paintwork done. Here, we have ther rangefinder stalk and topper, and this one was really fun to do. I also have some fine detail work which is shown in the next post..

Now, pretty standard stuff here, but trying to get the damage patterns correct is always the challenge. I noticed that the black paint of the topper, was stripped down in parts to the underlying gel coat; as well as appearing to have a misting and 'dusty effect' over the black, and darker black scuff marks could be seen within. I tried to emulate this by adding a basecoat super light grey (humbrol 147) first, then layering the black on the main area. I liquid masked a few of the darker black scuff marks, and then super lightly misted over the black with light grey (humbrol 147) to achieve the dusty effect.

The stalk was another, that seems like it has actually been painted silver over the metal, as the corners and scratches within it were far brighter than the main body. I used humbrol aluminium (56), which has a slightly more bluish tinge than straight silver. I then applied the damage in the right spots, and sanded back corners etc to reveal the bright metal. Overall, very happy, but the light just wasn't on my side today, so you can't pick up a lot of the subtle colour changes in these photos.

In any case, we have pics of the different angles of the RF topper in 1; some shots of the topper and stalk as a whole in 2; and a detail comparison pic in 3. In the comparison pic, you may be able to see that I even tried to emulate the cut off brass screw on the underside. There is also an oval shaped one on the rear of the stalk which I added in also..

And then, onto some fine detail areas. These are areas that many miss out, but are the important things for me in the accuracy stakes. Pic 1 is showing the small orange substance drops up the rangefinder ear. I imagine it was a glue of some sort, but I was able to replicate it with a humbrol clear orange paint (which is actually a nightmare of a paint to use). There is also some of these drips elsewhere around the helmet. Pic 2 is something I really wanted to include and get right, and its the small white scuff marks on the actual visor. The MOM version definately has these, wether they were on the hero lid in the movie, im not certain, as I haven't investigated. Pic 3 shows the earcap off revealing the micro-switch, and also the newly finished up rectangle seperating the top and bottom earpiece. You may be able to detect some more orange scuffs on this section.

So there you go folks. Interior is next, then will go over with a fine tooth comb to make sure I haven't missed anything, then hopefully can get my good man Karlos to take some pretty shots of the final lid! Thanks for looking, any feedback, as always, appreciated. Peace